Novelist Cathy Kelly was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, brought up in Dublin and started her working life as a journalist in an Irish national newspaper. She worked as both a news and feature reporter, and worked as the paper’s film critic for five years, as well as being the agony aunt for seven years.
Her first book, Woman To Woman, was published in 1997 and was an instant bestseller, spending eight weeks at number one on the Irish bestseller charts. Her subsequent novels have been number ones all around the world and are published in many different languages.
She’s just finished her tenth novel, Lessons in Heartbreak, which is published in January 2008. Cathy lives in Wicklow in Ireland with her partner, John, and their twin sons, Murray and Dylan.
In 2005, she was appointed as a UNICEF Ireland Ambassador. She’s since visited Mozambique and Rwanda as part of her work with UNICEF. Global Parenting – caring for children orphaned or affected by HIV/AIDS – is the main focus of her work with UNICEF.
As well as her work for UNICEF, Cathy is an avid supporter of Book Aid International so was delighted to offer her book choice for our Unrefined Book Club.
1. Why did you recommend A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?
Apart from reading Wodehouse, I don't recall ever reading anything that made me laugh as much as the trilogy (unusually, a five-book series) by Douglas Adams. I read the first book when I was in journalism college in Dublin and can still see my young self sprawled on a couch at home (when I should have been doing an assignment or something else), howling with laughter at everything from Vogon poetry to what sort of hoopy frood you'd be if you always knew where you'd left your towel. If I'm making this sound too mad, I'm sorry: it's hilariously funny, marvelously written and totally memorable.
2. My favourite place to enjoy the indulgence of reading is?
In bed at night when I know I should turn off the light because I've got to get up early, but then I just can't stop. I am very disciplined in most areas but am a quivering mass when it comes to reading " I would prefer to be exhausted and keep reading. Which is why I now look 110 years old
3. What was the last book that you read?
Live To Tell by Immaculee Ilbigaza, a woman who lived through the tragedy of the Rwandan genocide and found God in the process. I've just come back from Rwanda and read the book on the plane home. It's incredibly moving and proof of the courage of the human spirit.
4. The most evocative sense for me is|taste / smell / sight / hearing/ touch ?
Aagh - impossible question! Sight is so vital to me because reading is my number one pleasure, apart from the joy of being with my family. There aren't enough books for the blind and whenever I'm in the library and think about this, I get angry to think that blind people are so often denied that pleasure. But hearing, touch, smell, taste, they're all priceless. I guess I could lose taste if I had to. What does this say about my cooking?
5. Who's your literary hero?
Again, what an impossible question. But can I chose Wodehouse and Seamus Heaney? Seamus Heaney touches your heart with every exquisitely-crafted word. I think he'd be my desert island choice, alongside The SAS Survival Handbook by John ~Lofty Wiseman, which teaches you about shelter, what things you can and can't eat and how to find water and make fire under any circumstances. I mean, let's be practical here.
6. I like to share my favourite books with?
Everyone. I used to lend like a crazy woman (apparently not acceptable behaviour for a published author) because when I read a book I loved, I was mad to share the brilliance. However, I did lose books that way " in fact, my Hitchhiker's is gone, I know who has it, and I'm going round their house right now!
7. If you could spend an afternoon with any literary character, who would it be?
Bertie Wooster, who, has sort of metamorphosed into Hugh Laurie thanks to the wonderful TV series. Think of the fun you'd have. Or Marvin the Paranoid Android from Hitchhiker's would be fun too. Brain the size of a planet (Marvin) and stuck with a stupid human - marvellous!!
8. I like books to be: Crunchy and snappy like Almond Brittle Melt-in-the-mouth like Original Crumbly Fudge Ticklish and fun like Coconut Ice ?
Fudge, definitely. There's a slow burn there with fudge that takes time to sink in.
9. The best journey I have shared with a book was?
I can never read in cars but once, on a long car trip across the US, I managed to overcome the carsickness to sit, feet on the dashboard (I am a small person and squash up well) reading Herman Wouk's War And Remembrance that I'd bought in a second-hand shop somewhere on the East coast (again, very naughty for a published author but I was young and we had $20 a day to live on, honestly).It's a big book and it was a big journey, so somehow I can remember traveling along the Interstates being mentally lost in World War 2.
10. Who do you most identify with in this book?
I didn't really identify with any one of the people in War And Remembrance as I reread it recently. I think it must be the writer in me but when I'm reading about a person, I sort of am that person, seeing what they're seeing. So it shifts and changes through a book.
